Optical communication uses light to communicate between an optical transmitter and an optical receiver (e.g., a photodetector). Optical communication is primarily used in telecommunications to communicate large amounts of data (e.g., voice traffic, network traffic, etc.) over large distances between two points. An optical communication path, such as a fiber optic fiber, may carry optical network traffic for hundreds or thousands of devices. As the number of devices increases, so too does the demand for optical communication bandwidth. With the increase in demand for optical communication bandwidth, there also comes a need for new and improved ways of encoding the optical network traffic. By employing different optical encoding schemes, an optical communication path can be improved to carry additional optical network traffic without having to physically alter the optical communication path.